a corrupt vote, and a helpless, unorganized vote, loaded on to its present political difficulties? Where would the state be with a doubled negro vote in the Black Belt? Where would New York and Chicago be with a doubled immigrant vote? I have two friends, sisters, one of them living in Utah, the other in Colorado-both suffrage states. The one in Colorado belongs to the indifferent vote. She is too busy to vote, and doesn't believe in it anyhow. The one in Utah goes to the polls regularly, not because she wants to vote, but because as she says "The Mormons vote all their women solidly, and we Gentiles have to vote as a duty-and how we wish we were back again under manhood suffrage." Is the state benefited by an unwilling electorate such as that?

Outlook. 97: 143-4. January 28, 1911.

Women Voters' Views on Woman's Suffrage.

No one expects woman's suffrage to be refused in any country where popular self-government prevails whenever the majority of women themselves make it clear that they desire to vote. Heretofore the greatest obstacle to woman's suffrage has been the indifference of women themselves. To those who advocate the bestowal of the ballot upon women whether they wish it or not this indifference has been particularly irritating, because they feel that such indifference cannot be overcome until women themselves experience the exhilaration of voting. A news item in the London "Times," however, indicates that even the experience of dropping ballots into a box does not necessarily convert women to the view that it is their duty to bear the burden of the suffrage. According to this item, the Women's national anti-suffrage league has made a canvass of women who have the franchise in municipal elections. It has inquired of them whether they were in favor of extending their duties to include political franchise. For this purpose, districts were selected representing a variety of population-typical of London, of large provincial cities, of country towns, and of agricultural vil

lages. Of the total number, 2,520 expressed themselves as being in favor of "votes for women," and 9,845 opposed. The account in the London "Times" does not state the total number of those who were neutral or who failed to answer the inquiries; in North Berks, it reports, however, that out of a municipal electorate of 1,291 wòmen, 1,085 were opposed to the extension of the franchise. In Bristol, out of an electorate of over 7,000, less than 900 were in favor of the suffrage. Almost 2,000, on the other hand, were neutral, over 1,000 did not even reply, and over 3,000 expressed their opposition.

Woman Suffrage and Child Labor Legislation. pp. 5-7.

Mr. Owen Lovejoy, Secretary of the National child labor committee, in his report of the proceedings at Birmingham, Alabama in March, 1911 says:

"The States which do not require proof of the child's age or at least any proof worthy the name are Colorado, Florida, Louisiana, Nevada, South Dakota, Texas, Utah, Virginia, Wyoming, Alabama, Arkansas, Georgia, Idaho, Wisconsin, Mississippi, North Carolina, South Carolina and Tennessee.

"Our agents have frequently found eight, nine and ten year old boys applying for work in these states upon affidavits certifying them to be fourteen or sixteen years of age.

"When we lay upon the greedy parent the temptation to deceive in order to secure employment for a child we are guilty of placing the burden upon the weak, where it does not belong and promoting perjury by process of law."

It will be noticed that the four equal suffrage states are all in Mr. Lovejoy's list. The truth is that the suffrage states, far from being in the van of remedial legislation for children, have been laggards in the work. Not one of them has been a pioneer in the movement, but they have always followed the lead of other states in child labor laws and usually long after these laws have been incorporated in the statutes of adjoining states.

The Juvenile court law of Colorado is deservedly famous

but it was not the first court of its kind established in the United States. The law establishing a juvenile court in Illinois was passed some time before the Colorado law and its features were practically the same. It was the Juvenile court law of Illinois that formed the basis for the Colorado law, and Chicago had a juvenile court some years before the Denver court was established.

The National child labor committee has prepared a model child labor law for uniform legislation. It has followed the principle of embodying in the text the best provisions contained in the laws of the various states. The bill contains 49 sections and the following table shows the number of these model provisions already enacted in the suffrage states, and those of similar locality and conditions. Of 49 provisions of this model law we find the law of

Wyoming contains none

Idaho contains none

Colorado contains 7

Utah contains 8

California contains 12

Oregon contains 14

Oklahoma contains 15

North Dakota contains 15

Minnesota contains 20

Nebraska contains 25

Wisconsin contains 27

These facts are not given with any intention of disparaging the work of the four equal suffrage states, but merely to disprove the claim of the suffragists that if women were given the ballot they would bring about better laws, for the protection of children than exist under male suffrage. Neither can they claim that the inadequacies of the law are due solely to the conditions of life and labor in a western and chiefly agricultural community, for we find Montana, Nebraska, Oregon and Oklahoma with better provisions and more inclusive laws.

Mrs. Florence Kelley, Secretary of the National consumers' league says:—

"It is perhaps not surprising that the state with the most sweeping provision that no child below the age of sixteen years shall be employed in any gainful occupation is Montana which has no occasion for employing children except as telegraph or messenger boys and is subject, therefore to less temptation than the rest of us": and she adds, "next best perhaps after Montana comes a great industrial state."

"In Ohio after six o'clock at night no girl under eighteen years old and no boy under sixteen can be employed in gainful occupation. If we take down the receiver of a telephone in Cleveland or Cincinnati at night, it is not a young girl's voice that answers any more than it would be in New Orleans. Louisiana and Ohio share, I believe, alone the honor due to their humane provision that all night work, to which elsewhere we are so cruelly accustomed shall be done not by young girls, not by any young person-a boy under 16 or a girl under 18 years old-but by older people, who do not suffer so cruelly from loss of sleep." Would women with the ballot have accomplished more for child labor in these states than they have accomplished without it? The experience of equal suffrage states disproves it.

Address before the Brooklyn Auxiliary, April 30, 1909.

Mrs. A. J. George.

Women have a restricted suffrage in India, in Cape Colony, in Italy, in Austro-Hungary, even in Russia, but in each of these instances it is the woman who holds property who votes because of that property and not the woman who votes because of her need of representation as a woman.

In 1906 the Czar granted adult suffrage for the men and women of Finland over 24 years of age, and in the present Diet of that Province, 26 women are seated out of a total membership of 200; but this Diet is not a representative assembly with the power of taking initiative in legislation, or enforcing legislation. Twice a week for about three months in the year, the members meet to consider laws proposed by

'

the Emperor. The Emperor has veto power on all its acts, and can dissolve the Diet at his will.

Votes for women is apparently not what the French women ask for. In October, 1908, for the first time, women as well as men employed in trade and business had by a new law a vote for the election of "Conseils de Prudhommes" the judge of special commercial courts. The returns show that only 24 per 1,000 women availed themselves of this new privilege. Moreover, this small minority consists entirely of female clerks employed in one or two large banks, whose names in every case had been put down by their employers themselves. Not one single woman engaged in trade had taken the trouble even to enter her name in the registers. The matter is an important one, as all trade disputes are decided by that tribunal. Yet up to date exactly eight women in France have put their names down on the registers out of the thousands who are principals or partners in business of their own in France, where there are probably more trade and industrial undertakings in feminine hands than in any other country. Perhaps that is why they present a sublime indifference to the suffrage.

But what of Norway, Sweden and Denmark,―countries. more closely allied in institutions to our government? A recent suffrage writer names Norway as a country where women have full suffrage. What are the facts? In June, 1907, the Storthings rejected a bill providing for universal suffrage, but adopted a bill granting women the parliamentary franchise on the same conditions as are prescribed in the case of municipal electors. That is, all women over 25 years of age who pay taxes on an income (they have an income tax in Norway) enjoyed by themselves or husbands, have the vote. Here again we have a property qualification and it is worthy of notice that the population of Norway is one of common origin, a homogeneous people, whose problem is one of emigration rather than of immigration, and that the entire country has a population about one-half that of New York City. A year after this limited parliamentary franchise was granted to women in Norway, a bill was